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Sunday, September 5, 2010

The Film Experience

Justin Ng lent me his classic, slightly stiff, but still working amazingly well Nikon F-401s, released 1989, to... well revive and play with.

My very first roll of color film, Fujifilm Superia 400, ended up with only 24 frames exposed because my geh kiang brain apparently refused to accept the image of the huge 36 printed on the box of the roll. Slightly smarter with my second roll, Kodak's highly regarded 400CN B&W film, I exposed all 36 frames to some rather striking results. You'll find my efforts in this Facebook album (don't worry it's a public album whether you have FB or not!)

After that I wanted to try more pro films, so I bought Fujifilms Pro 400H and Reala 100. The uncle who sold me these two rolls (at $9.50 each I think I was cheated but well he was nice) sad that the 400H was particularly good for portraiture (ie. face) shots and did badly (or perhaps flatly) in landscape shots, leading me to be reluctant to snap at... anything that isn't a face. I got to finish this roll today at Shutterjourney's film outing, and I gave in to a few landscape shots, but for once my album will mostly be faces (yay for that). The Reala 100 on the other hand is the ultimate in fine grain and color reproduction and vibrance, but at only ISO 100, requiring plenty of light to shoot and capture well.

At TripleD, the lab we sent our rolls to, I decided on the Italian Solaris 400. Just to try it out you know.

Then I went with a few of the gang to Orient Photo at Sim Lim, and noticed the Kodak Ektar 100. Like the Reala 100, it is Kodak's ultimate color film.

So I just had to buy it.

The Solaris is currently loaded in the camera now. Once that is finished, I'm really looking forward to a shootout between these two rolls. Stay tuned!